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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621712">Long Way Down</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach'>eirabach</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Thunderbirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence, F/M, Or not, Pen and Ink Week 2020, Prompt Fic, Thunderbirds are Go! - Freeform, fall - Freeform, you can prise this headcanon from my cold dead hands</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:21:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,181</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't fall for her. Much.</p><p>[Day seven of Pen and Ink week 2020, prompt 'fall']</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Penelope Creighton-Ward/Gordon Tracy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Long Way Down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He doesn’t fall for her.</p><p>Not at first, not when first sight is across a ballroom and she’s laughing on the arm of some other guy and Gordon is too, unofficially at least. Spring Break this year is being spent in the English countryside, and his father is too busy shaking hands to keep an eye on where Gordon’s wander. But, <em>anyway.</em></p><p>He doesn’t fall for her then.</p><p>He doesn’t fall for her that summer, the summer they first move to the island. His head is still too full of cheering crowds, his heart delighting in the gold around his neck. Scott flirts with her, because she’s alive and Scott’s kinda a slut, but Gordon’s usually way worse. Gordon’s way worse, and this island is super small. Small and heaving with testosterone and the stink of dirty socks, so the pretty girl at the poolside in her pink bikini? She’s something to look at. Lust after. Think about in the dead of night when the air’s too hot to sleep and skin’s just hot enough to touch. </p><p>He imagines sometimes that maybe she’s gonna be Scott’s girl and that’s – that’s gonna be weird isn’t it? Years down the line, when she’s Scott’s and he’s – he’s whatever he’s gonna be. Something, probably. Or nothing. Either or, and what does it matter that he doesn’t know, then, what his future holds? Because he’s only seventeen and still so uncertain and there are <em>opportunities, son</em>. Things to consider beyond the curve of a pretty girls hip. Beyond the money and the island and the name, and Gordon – Gordon does consider them. Briefly. These intangible, maybe things. The hopes and dreams and aspirations of better men – and maybe he can count himself amongst them, maybe – </p><p>And then his father dies. His father burns. Explodes. Disintegrates into a great ball of nothing and all the gold, all the skills, all the brothers in the world can’t make sense of that – won’t <em>make up</em> for that. She doesn’t make up for that, not her damp shoulder or her soft hands. She <em>doesn’t.</em></p><p>But her voice is gentle and her lips are pink – as pink as the car Brains builds for her, pink as the tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth and –</p><p>And maybe she ought to be Scott’s girl, but it isn’t Scott she looks at now.</p><p>—</p><p>He doesn’t fall for her, the first time.</p><p>Doesn’t dare.</p><p>Because now she’s her Ladyship. Penelope. <em>Penny</em>. And she lets him say it, lets him whisper it against her collarbone, press it into every one of her ribs like a secret, all tawdry and private and <em>theirs</em>. And she doesn’t ask him not to tell. Doesn’t ask him for anything other than in the way her fingers tighten, in the gasps she smothers in her sheets. But she doesn’t have to.</p><p>He doesn’t tell, because no one would believe him anyway.</p><p>He doesn’t stay, because how can he.</p><p>He doesn’t fall, because what would be the <em>point.</em></p><p>Gordon isn’t seventeen any more, and Penelope’s not just some pretty girl. He knows now what he could never have known back then. He knows exactly what his place in the world is. Exactly what it takes to sit amongst the best, and he knows sure as any man can what lies in his future. He writes his own will at twenty three and wonders what exactly he’s got to leave behind – except her.</p><p>And he tells himself he <em>doesn’t </em>– insists that he <em>can’t </em>– but the first time he sees her, afterward, he ducks his head away. Can’t quite make eye contact and she says his name like – like she’s pleased that it’s him – and this, well this is a disaster isn’t it? Because the water quakes and his heart stutters and – he doesn’t fall for her.</p><p>He <em>doesn’t</em>.</p><p> —</p><p>She’s perfectly polite, perfectly professional – perfectly Penelope in every way, always – until they’re alone. Until she isn’t. Until she’s scowling at him and sniping and he doesn’t fall for her then, he doesn’t, but he feels her eyes on him down in those tunnels. Feels the warmth of her body against his and when it’s all ending the way he always knew it would – well.</p><p>He’s only a boy, and she’s <em>so much more</em> than a girl.</p><p>Virgil laughs at him afterward. After he’s denied everything, again. Run away, <em>again</em>, because what other option is there, other than to lay down at her feet? And he would if he could, he <em>would</em>, but he can’t. Virgil laughs at him, because Virgil thinks he’s ridiculous and Virgil – Virgil is always right.</p><p>Virgil is also always an asshole, but that’s neither here nor there because he shouldn’t flirt with her. Whether he’s stinking or not – he <em>mustn’t</em> – but he can’t quite help himself. Can’t quite stop himself. </p><p>But she could stop him, one word, one look, and he swears he’ll give it up. Whatever it is – this weird self torture that makes his heart skip every time her voice comes over the comms. That makes his palms sweat against controls he knows better than he knows his own mind. But when she giggles the ship seems to steady. When she smiles, at him,<em> for</em> him, he forgets why he ever wanted her to stop him in the first place.</p><p>He only remembers how he never wants her to stop.</p><p>—</p><p>She astounds him daily. Hourly. In the way that she can be fierce and frightening in turns. How she’s parkour in high heels and a skill set learned at Parker’s knee, but still gentle and gracious and witty. And sometimes on quiet days, as few and far between as they can be, he calls up the memories of that first, only time – and lets himself pretend.</p><p>Pretends he’d stayed. Pretends he’d curled himself around her and never ever left – pretends that part of him hasn’t gone and done just that anyway. </p><p>It takes months – years, actually –  filled with half unspoken conversations, uncrackable safes, bad guys with a fetish for little yellow submersibles, and a <em>date</em> with <em>John</em> before she brings up that night. Mentions it almost in passing as he wrestles Bertie on the deck of the Solar Explorer, her back to him and hips swinging as she walks away.</p><p>All <em>and you know perfectly well you’re my favourite</em>, like that’s all it should have taken. Like he should have known that she <em>meant</em> it, and his jaw drops.</p><p>Bertie takes advantage, because apparently Bertie is considerably cooler under pressure than he is. Bertie knows what to do with the love that shakes his whole body. Knows how to show it and mean it and admit it when it matters. So Gordon – Gordon learns.</p><p>—</p><p>And Gordon dies.</p><p>Not entirely, not even mostly, but there’s a time he won’t ever remember, whispers he won’t ever hear. And when he wakes up it’s to her hand in his hair and blood in his mouth. When he wakes up, he knows that he was gone.</p><p>When he wakes up, there’s her.</p><p>And then, she catches him.</p>
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